


Imagine Surrender

by alasweneverdo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-A Bitter Pill, Post-All That Remains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alasweneverdo/pseuds/alasweneverdo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then she remembers: Her mother is dead, and he wouldn’t be here otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> This was just collecting dust in my drafts, so I figured I might as well finish it.
> 
> Unedited, and I was a little tipsy when finishing it up. Hopefully it's not a chaotic trash heap.
> 
> Title taken from "Seaside Improvisation" by Richard Siken.

She's still halfway unconscious when the realization comes.

He stayed this time.

His body forms a soft wall in front of her as she wakes up. The stiffness in her limbs tempts her to stretch, but she feels him tangled around her, his hold almost too tight for breathing room, and reconsiders. Instead, she presses closer to his chest, inhaling deeply to ground herself.

The tang of lyrium. Faint traces of steel. That warm, sweat-tinged smell of bare skin, a slight and salty musk. She wonders how many battles have soaked into his bones since he last washed, because that thing she thinks is lyrium might really be blood, though she isn't sure whose. Isn't sure she'd want to know anyway.

And then she remembers: Her mother is dead, and he wouldn't be here otherwise. He wouldn't be lying naked in Hawke's bed, wrapped in a tight embrace, ignoring their desperate agreement not to cross these lines again. Exceptions to every rule, she supposes.

He'd said, "To be honest, I don't think there is much point in filling these moments with empty talk." So she'd pulled him close and kissed him like his mouth was an anchor at sea. And he let her. From that point everything she'd tried to say but couldn't was cast aside, replaced by hands on skin, in hair; replaced by mouths too occupied for words.

Guilt weighs heavily in her chest, gathering with the rest of her regrets. She didn't want it to happen like this, with him complying out of pity or obligation or—whatever this is, this thing he's convinced himself of to justify the slip-up so at least one of them can feel all right about it. And she could resent him for letting it happen, but she knows it's her fault more than anything. Even so, she wishes he hadn't stayed. It would be easier to accept it all if he were gone, easier to accept the finality and move on from it. But she can't move on from this wound he refuses to let heal. Already she can feel it festering from these weeks and months of neglect, and now this.

The other part of her—the selfish, irrational part—never wants him to leave. Might fall to pieces all over again if he does. _When_ he does.

Maybe he's still asleep, she thinks. It's unlikely, since he's never struck her as a heavy sleeper, and he probably felt her moving when she first stirred. But if he is awake, he hasn't shown any signs of it. She hopes it's because he wants this moment to last as badly as she does.

She reminds herself again that he didn't leave. That has to mean something.

Just then, he shifts, a movement that starts at the hips as his legs stretch and the arm curled around her tightens its grip. She is all too aware of how naked they both are, how warm his skin is on hers, how well-fucked she feels. He makes a low, quiet sound, a groan or hum or wordless noise of complaint, and she decides he must be asleep.

"Hawke."

She is not that lucky.

His voice, still husky from sleep, makes his chest rumble and has her shivering. The slow heat of arousal is already pooling in her, because they're naked and he's _him_ and she wants him constantly, but especially now— _needs_ him especially now. She can feel the sharp lines of his body pressing against her. Too much bone and wiry muscle, and all of it too tense. But he molds around her like an exoskeleton, and even though they're the same size she feels comfortably small in this cage of limbs.

She's in love with him, and she'd say so if she thought he wanted to hear it.

"Pretending to be asleep?" he says.

"Yes," she mumbles.

"You're not very convincing."

"Clearly."

He lets out a forceful breath, tickling the top of her head. "You slept longer than I expected. It's midday already."

That comes as no surprise. It was late when they went to the foundry, later still when she buried her mother, and Maker knows how much time she spent scrubbing the blood and grime off her skin in the bath.

(What she does know is how late Fenris kept her up, how long he distracted her, how many _times_ he distracted her. If she focuses on that, everything else melts away, and that's what matters. That's what _needs_ to matter.)

"Is that your way of saying you should go?" she asks.

"Do you want me to?"

"I don't know." And she doesn't; she needs him to stay, but knows he should leave, and she's torn between asking him not to go and just letting him, because she loves him and it compels her to be unselfish. She starts to tuck her legs in closer, then realizes she's straddling his thigh—and _fuck_ , it's getting harder to convince herself that trying to initiate something would be a bad idea. But all of this has already been one colossally bad idea anyway. In for a copper, in for a sovereign, as they say.

"Perhaps I should," he says, and her heart sinks through the floorboards.

"Right," she mutters, forgetting everything to do with selflessness. "This was obviously a mistake anyway."

There's a pause, then he starts to move. She screws her eyes shut and refuses to give him pitiful looks as he unwraps himself from around her. His weight is still pushing down on the mattress for a long moment after he's moved away from her.

Finally, he says in too soft a voice, "Don't misunderstand. It is no easier for me to leave now than it was before."

It didn't seem all that difficult in the first place, she doesn't say. Every time, she wants to hold on and try to salvage something, and he walks away like it's nothing. Like everything between them is _nothing_.

And the worst part is that no matter how hard she tries, she can't really be angry with him for it. Not for long. She understands, though she wishes she didn't—wishes she could be resentful, just for a little while, because everything else hurts badly enough and this is just overkill in the worst way.

He would stay if she cried. If she broke down right now, he would comfort her. And that's exactly why she won't do it. The wound needs to close eventually.

"I know," she says. She opens her eyes. "Fenris?"

He turns slightly from his place on the edge of the bed. The light filtering through the curtains brightens the planes of his skin, and she can see patterns of lyrium like snake bones on his arms and back and neck. If things were different, she could admire how beautiful he is.

"I…" She takes another steadying breath. "Thank you. I haven't reached all right yet, but I'm better."

He looks away quickly, shoulders tensing, then nods. "If there's anything you need, I will do my best to help," he says stiffly.

She frowns in confusion, watching as he dresses quickly. He doesn't look at her again. She's left staring uncomprehendingly as he takes his leave, closing her bedroom door behind him and leaving an ocean of silence in his wake. Hawke rolls onto her back to gaze up at the canopy.

Maybe he was expecting something else. But then, so was she.


End file.
